I have recently spoken to both a serving airline pilot and a recently retired NATS chap on just this subject. They both have said that the speed of the verbal exchange is quite normal and gets all the required information across in the shortest possible time bearing in mind there are many different aircraft being handled at the same time. If any info is missed then either the pilot or the controller will request a repeat which very rarely happens.

Brevity and speed are essential. Even worse with military as they use far more very specific jargon. Ham band contests are even worse. Good news is that it becomes easier as you listen more and more. It helps to read some pilot training manuals to understand all the acronyms and abbreviations. Q code, pressure settings, waypoints, and other very common but complex components then start to make sense. when it is just a jumble of words it is gibberish, but once you start to recognise the little chunks making up the message, it falls into place. You can then start to understand the apparent politeness that is often disguised annoyance when things go wrong.

G4RMT wrote: It helps to read some pilot training manuals to understand all the acronyms and abbreviations. Q code, pressure settings, waypoints, and other very common but complex components then start to make sense. when it is just a jumble of words it is gibberish, but once you start to recognise the little chunks making up the message, it falls into place. You can then start to understand the apparent politeness that is often disguised annoyance when things go wrong.

I found several airband (Scanner) books in a charity shop & found that buying them was a good buy. Not for the frequencies, which I already had, but for understanding what certain jargon meant & why it's used. Amazon often has airband listening books available at good prices. So that could be another source of information.

There's a heap of training stuff for pilots, available on-line and elsewhere. In my own (amateur) flying days I found speaking to the ground controllers absolutely terrifying. It certainly helps to understand the terminology -- which I guess any pilot will -- but the speed of delivery takes some getting used to. I used to fly out of Elstree where things were a bit more relaxed -- sometimes they would use whole sentences. The Gatwick TMA is a different world entirely. In the end, I think you just have to listen for hours and hours to tune your ear/brain to this mode of conversation.